


Four Times John Spent Christmas Alone, and One Time He Didn't

by octopieces



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Challenge Response, Gift Fic, M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 02:14:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octopieces/pseuds/octopieces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Johnlockchallenges November gift exchange. My response to cdngingergirl's prompt of "holiday, Halloween or Christmas." </p><p>~~</p><p>There are so many things that Sherlock doesn't care for. Cold coffee, patronizing comments from MI6 via Mycroft, coming home to find the fingers missing from the fridge. </p><p>All of these pale in comparison to holidays. In particular, Christmas.</p><p>Sherlock hates Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Times John Spent Christmas Alone, and One Time He Didn't

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CdnGingerGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CdnGingerGirl/gifts).



0.

There are so many things that Sherlock doesn’t care for. Cold coffee, patronizing comments from MI6 via Mycroft, coming home to find the fingers missing from the fridge.

All of these pale in comparison to holidays. In particular, Christmas.

Sherlock hates Christmas.

 

 

1.

The first he and John share together is awkward on John’s part. He invites Sarah, spends the entire night trying to edge her under the mistletoe while she barrages Sherlock with awkward and forced questions to feign interest when he can read discomfort due the imminent and inevitable break-up-to-be, bright and bold as the reindeer-patterned-wrapping-paper Mrs Hudson delivered his new leather gloves in.

John gets very drunk that New Year’s.

Sherlock doesn’t mind that so much.

The mistletoe withers over the door.

 

 

2.

The second Christmas comes. Sherlock has his first cigarette in two years. He’d maintained an astonishingly steady picture of sobriety in front of John, even in the face of long stretches of no sleep where the syringes beckon him for the hundredth time in half a decade.

But the sight of the body on the slab makes the craving rear its ugly head, and Mycroft, who, in his irritating but steadfast presence, is a constant reminder of Sherlock’s past addiction, pulls out a single, cheap cigarette, wishes him a Merry Christmas.

It’s the most brotherly they've been in years.

John, fresh from a half-heartbreak, doesn’t sleep. When Sherlock comes home, not a single line of evidence on his face that betrays emotion is all John needs to know that a pot of coffee is in order for himself.

For six days, he and Mrs Hudson watch him brood. At least on New Year, he eats.

 

 

3.

Even after six months, he still reaches for two cups when he makes tea.

The third Christmas sees the second cup shattered on the floor, and John’s knees give just before midnight. The walls, shortly before dawn.

Sherlock spends that holiday in the bathroom of a barely held-together hostel, bleaching what’s left of his hair, made difficult by fingers just reset a week ago, stiff and sore and useless.

He feels the buzz of his phone in his pocket - Mycroft, he knows.

The number on the screen makes bile rise in the back of his throat.

_Make your own tea._

The syringe wins that night.

 

 

4.

The fourth, John spends alone, again. Harry texts him throughout the evening, bringing up Clara far too much. John isn’t sure she quite understands that barraging someone else with stories of your break-up makes them feel any better about your own.

Mary’s ring stays wrapped under the tree.

It disappears later that week.

Sherlock spits blood into the sink, wipes at his brow, checks the cracked screen of his mobile. Mycroft has sent him the coordinates of the next target.

There is nothing from John. He isn’t surprised.

Suddenly the pain of three cracked ribs and a broken canine is nothing to not being able to swallow.

 

 

5.

The eve before John’s third Christmas alone is a wet one. Snow is completely wiped out by rain, rain and sleet and ice and cold that drives Lestrade to pull John, knee deep in his book, hunkered over his laptop and surrounded by case notes, out to the pub for a single-man’s drink.

John stumbles home on his own, alone again, just as it begins to snow. It’s a dusting, and for the first time in a long time, the street is quiet. Maybe it’s the drink, but John finds himself counting his footsteps up the steps, doesn’t notice the sprig of mistletoe Mrs Hudson hung over the door.

The lights are on, and there’s tea made in the kitchen, and the plate of biscuits is missing half a gingerbread man and John has kicked off his shoes and is halfway through drinking the cup of lukewarm tea when he realizes by the unwelcome fluke of sweetness in his mouth (he always takes his tea without sugar) that this is not his, and that his notes have been rearranged, and his laptop is turned the other way and high cheekbones are lit dreadfully by the blue glow of the screen and Sherlock looks up, and bloody hell, he’s wearing glasses and there’s the smallest of red marks on his face from a clean shave he can’t have had for more than half an hour and he’s so thin and there and looking at John and he’s not blinking and John stares and stares and stares and finally crumples to the ground and laughs.

It’s only when Sherlock puts his laptop aside and stands up that he shouts something completely unintelligible and there’s the sound of ceramics shattering and more shouting and ornaments from the sad little tree in the corner being thrown and Sherlock doesn’t say anything - he simply stands there, listens to the insults, the hurt, the names, takes the blows as they come, to arm and chest and chin and nose and nowhere where he hasn’t already been hurt countless times before.

And then, when John’s voice breaks and he coughs on a wheeze, vocal chords nearly wrecked, he catches the fist aimed for his jaw, and John bloody melts to the floor and sits there, silent. Numb.

Sherlock kneels down, softly touches his knee. He says something. John makes a little sound. Sherlock repeats himself. John still doesn’t hear him fully.

Long, thin fingers tilt his chin up, and John can see the damage written under his inflictions of three years alone.

In the countless guilty scenarios he’d indulged in two autumns back, he’d always asked why.

He doesn’t need to, now.

They’re never sure who kisses first. Maybe Sherlock, out of relief. Maybe John, out of desperation. It’s terrible at first, Sherlock a bit unsure of boundaries and if John remembers that first Christmas, and John is sloppy and shaking and all clicking teeth and scraping tongues and needy for entrance and Sherlock finally opens his mouth and touches the tip of his tongue to John’s lower lip and he’s gone.

John fumbles with Sherlock’s shirt - his form is probably the furthest thing from sexy right about now, but he doesn’t care. He wants to see scars. He wants to see the evidence - more so, he wants to compare. Is your pain my pain?

Sherlock lets him, lets him look, helps him a bit, lifts his shirt over his head and instantly, John needs to see more. His hands map the streams of scars, the smooth-sharp dips of his ribs - Sherlock is a topographical map, and John is a blind man, feeling his way around the where of the last three years.

Sherlock gasps softly as John touches a particularly vicious slash along his right hip. “Spain,” he says, and John’s grip tightens and there’s more kissing and a belt buckle fumbles and he’s tugging his trousers and pants down to his thighs before he realizes he’s still completely dressed. Sherlock just hikes his shirt out of his trousers and tugs his jumper up, baring his belly, soft, vulnerable. Even in his haste, he is tender. He unzips John fast, doesn’t even ask if it’s what he wants, because John, he can taste, he can feel, has been wanting for years.

John pushes against him, kisses him before Sherlock can work a hand into his briefs, overbalances and sends them both to the floor, John on top. The friction of Sherlock’s bare cock through the fabric of his pants fans the fire inside, and he thrusts without another thought, over and over and the sharpness of Sherlock’s hips (god, he’s so damn skinny) presses painfully into the softness of John’s belly and he’s bucking and groaning and his nails dig into Sherlock’s shoulders and he comes within ten seconds with a wail, and Sherlock is nowhere near finished, but John can’t do anything but drop his head to his shoulder and weep.

Sherlock doesn’t speak, doesn’t reach down to finish himself off. His arms wrap around John’s trembling shoulders and rest there for long, long minutes.

“You’re here,” John whispers at last. “You’re here.”

“Yes,” he whispers, at last, hand coming up to brush a hand over the film of sweat on John’s forehead. “I am.”

~~~

There’s an unspoken agreement between them as Sherlock toes open the door to his old room, John following close. Sherlock looks around a bit, then nods. “You tried.”

“Yeah.”

“Still kept all my notes.”

“Yeah.”

He glances over his shoulder. “Your room. Please.”

~

John falls asleep as the grey of a cloudy morning filters through the frosted window, Sherlock’s hip pressed to his, the line of his back pressed against John’s side. He turns to spoon him, and his hands freeze over his waist.

Touch is terrifying. He turns away again, and for a moment, when Sherlock shifts and the suspension of his breath makes John’s heart stop, he’s sure, absolutely sure, for a moment, that he is dreaming.

Sherlock’s elbow jabbing him unintentionally in the ribs makes his eyes sting with tears.

He laughs.

He laughs, voiceless and wheezy, until he falls asleep.

~~

Christmas morning, John wakes to an empty bed. He wants to vomit. Instead, he gets up, the floor painfully cold, and figures he may as well head down and look semi-awake for Mrs Hudson’s inevitable Christmas morning check-in.

There’s a cup of tea on the counter, still hot, milky, waiting for him. Sherlock is sweeping up the shards of the evening before, in his old pajama trousers and what looks like John’s stripey jumper.

John stands there, gazing at him, mouth slightly open.

Sherlock stops. The silence lasts for a full minute.

“This is the part where you’re going to ask me questions.”

“Why are you wearing my jumper?”

Sherlock looks a little taken aback, glances down. “Ah. Well. None of my old shirts fit. And…” He stops. Tilts his head. “You’re wondering if that happened.”

“That?”

“The floor.”

John’s ears flush a little bit, and his vision blurs momentarily. “I don’t know if you…”

“I missed you.”

That shuts him up in a heartbeat. His first thought is, “What?” But what comes out of his mouth is very different: “I know.”

Sherlock steps over the pile of shattered porcelain, let’s the broom drop, takes his face in his hands and kisses him. John’s feet practically feel like they’ll go through the floor, and it’s all he can do to merely grip Sherlock by the elbows and keep from falling. “I,” he begins, when Sherlock pulls away briefly to touch his cheek, “oh fuck, last night, I didn’t…I didn’t mean to forget -“

Sherlock cuts him off. “We can pick up where we left off,” he says. “But I have something to tell you.”

His stomach clenches. “Oh?”

“Merry Christmas, John.”

And then they’re back upstairs, and Sherlock is kissing him again, and John is laughing at points and moaning at others and his muscles twitch in anticipation as gentle fingers poke and prod and explore, sometimes uncomfortable and merely curious as opposed to sexy, but always wanting, always loving, always desiring.

John hears his own voice dimly in his ears, drunk with the sensation of Sherlock’s fingers tracing shapes on his inner thigh, the warmth of a mouth kissing over his navel, a slick tongue flicking over his sensitive right nipple. Words are tumbling out of his mouth like he can’t hold them there, overflowing, venting, cleansing, all the things he’d needed to say, wanted to say, how skinny Sherlock was and how much he’d missed him and how angry he was and how death had never sunk in and how stupid they both were and…

“Yes,” Sherlock whispers, and John is just about to come to bits as Sherlock pulls out his lube-slick fingers and John feels himself about to tip over the edge of some terrifying and beautiful precipice. “We’re both. So. Stupid.”

And then he’s inside, and John turns completely inward and buries his face in Sherlock’s neck and just exists in the pleasure.

It’s over relatively quickly. Sherlock, while a quick learner, is nonetheless inexperienced and soon the smooth, deep, rolling thrusts he gets the hang of after a few minutes become a stuttering strand of staccato jerks and John just revels in the sound of his voice gradually rising up the octave and then there’s the tightening and the desperate whisper in his ear and the heat and the depth and the sounds Sherlock makes drive him to squirm his hand between them and then Sherlock is making even more delicious sounds as John’s muscles clamp down around him and the space between them becomes sticky and slick and there’s little to do but lie there inside and around each other and listen to their racing hearts and try to slow their breathing.

“I have questions for you later,” John says. Sherlock nods, says he expected as much.

“I shan’t have as many as you,” he says, voice muffled a bit with his lips on John’s temple. “But I do wonder why Harry takes to calling you Scrooge year-round on your blog.”

John laughs again, and it’s incredibly, beautifully genuine, not incredulous, for once. “I don’t see why,” he says. “I’d think you’d be more deserving of that title.”

“Nonsense,” Sherlock says, pressing a kiss over each eyelid. “I love Christmas.”

John’s lips quiver slightly, a thousand tiny weights lifted from his heavy heart. “As do I,” he whispers. “As do I.”

**Author's Note:**

> For cdngingergirl as part of the Johnlockchallenges November/December Gift Exchange. The prompt was "Holiday (Christmas or Halloween."


End file.
